Winners of WAN-IFRA’s Print Innovation Awards announced

The awards are open to newspaper and magazine publishers as well as for advertisers and advertising agencies. This year, DB Corp (India), Stuff Ltd. (New Zealand), Malayala Manorama (India), Børneavisen (Denmark), and Times of India were the winners in the Advertising Innovation, Special Editions, Sustainability Innovation, Products for Young Readers and Product Innovation categories respectively.

"Innovation in print is essential for newspapers, and this year’s contestants demonstrated a number of creative innovations," said Ingi Rafn Olafsson, Director of the World Printers Forum at WAN-IFRA. “It was really inspiring to see this year’s ideas.”

“You may think there is no room for development or innovation, but a lot of good ideas are floating around and some of them have been developed in such a way that they can be considered as innovations,” said Anu Ahola, member of the World Printers Forum Board and Senior Vice President, News and Retail at UPM Communications Papers, which sponsored the awards. 

“In this year’s awards, it is particularly great to see how quickly our community came up with COVID-19 related innovations in print. This highlights the relevance of printed products for our consumers,” she added. 

Advertising Innovation: DB Corp 

DB Corp, publisher of Dainik Bhaskar, one of India’s leading dailies, won the Advertising Innovation category with its “spine card” innovation. The spine card advertisement printed for its automobile client Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, for the launch of their Mahindra Supro Maxi truck, was the first of its kind in India. Spine cards of 5” x 7” dimensions with multi colour printing on both sides with the logo and design of the Supro Maxi truck were pasted in the spine of the second and third pages of their newspapers Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi), Divya Bhaskar (Gujarati) and Divya Marathi (Marathi).

“One of our core values is being a trendsetter. Being true to our DNA we created a spinecard innovation for our client which stood out and did not miss a single eye,” said Adi Batnagar, CTO, DB Corp. 

Product Innovation: Times of India

In the Product Innovation category, Mumbai-based Times of India were the winners with their Pour and Reveal project. The idea was to raise awareness among students about which blood groups could be donated to a compatible group. 

“This is the third time in a row we got a product category innovation award from WAN-IFRA. There have been almost 159 different innovations that we have launched. We could monetise about 59 innovations so far and our revenue is $245 million. It’s been a great journey so far,” said Snehasis Roy, Director – Technical, Bennett Coleman Co Ltd., India.

Special Editions: Stuff

The Forever Project from Stuff Ltd., New Zealand, bagged the award in the Special Editions category. The magazine, which is a quarterly special edition, focuses on climate change and sustainability. The first edition of the magazine was published in March 2020 and drew overwhelming feedback. 

“The Forever Project brought together journalists from all over Stuff Ltd.’s newsroom and staff from all around our company to show climate change and sustainability are priorities for the whole organisation,” said Patrick Crewdson, Editor-in-Chief, Stuff. “We have packaged New Zealand’s most innovative and ambitious climate change reporting in a striking and carbon neutral magazine worth holding on to and a digital hub. We have turned this into an opportunity for advertising clients to reach conscious consumers and tell their own sustainability stories and it’s a symbol of Stuff’s commitment to reducing its own environmental impact through a science based approach.”

Sustainability Innovation: Malayala Manorama

In the Sustainability Innovation category, India’s Malayala Manorama won with their 10 MW Wind Turbine Project. In an initiative to promote green energy while becoming self-sufficient to meet their energy requirement, the team installed and commissioned a 10 MW captive wind turbine plant at Palakkad, Kerala, India. 

“Our press operations are 100 percent on renewable energy, generated by captive 10 MW wind turbine generators installed in 2018. Our annual consumption for 21 presses spread across Kerala is about 21 million units whereas the generation is around 26 millions units. This helps us to reduce the carbon footprint a lot,” said Shibu George,  Chief General Manager, Malayala Manorama company Ltd. 

Products for Young Readers: Børneavisen  

Denmark’s Børneavisen, a weekly print newspaper for children, was the winner in the Products for Young Readers category. Børneavisen is aimed at children between the ages of 9 and 12. The 24-page newspaper has a subscription model and contains news from around the world as well as stories on animals, sports, food, social media, science, politics and so on. The newspaper is completely ad-free.

Said Louise Abildgaard Grøn, CEO and Editor in Chief, Børneavisen: “When we launched the newspaper two years ago some people were very sceptical about a print newspaper for children in a digital age. But two years later we have proven them wrong. The response has been overwhelming. The print newspaper is the main product, but we are embracing the digital by our own app, which enables the children to be engaged and be involved in the editorial process. Besides that, the app makes it possible for us to be close to the children and understand their world.”

ABOUT THE WORLD PRINTERS FORUM 

The World Printers Forum is WAN-IFRA’s central point for the international news media print community. Members include printing houses, materials suppliers and equipment manufacturers for the print production value chain from prepress to press and to product finishing and delivery. It addresses all print-related questions and is open to all WAN-IFRA members interested in the future of the newspaper printing business and print-related areas. visit wan-ifra.org/world-printers-forum.